Originally Posted by deant

When the OP started this thread Bora Bora and Moorea had DELETED all standard award rooms. Everything was quoted as a "Premium" room. Since that time Hilton has reclassified a "Twin" room as a standard room at both locations. It is obvious that they did this because of their claim that "if there is a standard room available, you can have it with points". By definition, a hotel must have some sort of a "standard" room.

As for availability, you should look at what rooms are now available for a standard award. Up until the first of October, both Bora Bora and Moorea considered both King and Twin rooms as standard and could be had for the 50K per night or less. At Bora Bora this meant that there were potentially 16 rooms available for award redemption. Now it is potentially 3 with the elimination of King rooms from the "standard" classification. As for Moorea, you quote 56,661 per night for a room. Remember, this had been 42,500 per night up until the first of Oct. This is a 35% increase in point requirements! If you look in the May 2012 time frame, the majority of time the minimum is 63,946 points per night. This is for what used to be a standard room and could be had for the 42,500 points. This is a 50% increase in point requirements.

The most upsetting thing is not really the reclassification, but giving no notice and absolutely no communication. The last word from Hilton was that the change was a "glitch". They have NEVER come out and told us if the current definition is still a "glitch" or if this is the intent. Wouldn't it be nice to know?

Originally Posted by nic3456

Mock 7 Night stay next October at BBN -

Purchase Price
Twin Lagoon - Fr 55,350/nt
King Lagoon - Fr 55,350/nt

Rewards
Twin - 37,500/nt
King - 177,263/nt

If I want King it says "You will need to purchase 984,430 points for $28,732.90 "

Awesome, even better pricing than I get from Delta reward search engines!

Originally Posted by GUWonder

The "Diamond Force" benefit was gutted as part and parcel of this "premium room reward thing.

Originally Posted by FD1971

Anderson is one of the few airline managers in the US, who knows how to run an airline (mostly because KLM told him how to run one and after quite some years of learning, he was able to take it to the next level on an even bigger scale. Unfortunately, dealing with Air France is subject to far more obstacles in comparison to the very result-oriented approach of KLM in the 1990's)

Originally Posted by divemistressofthedark

The issue is that Hilton gave zero notice to its Diamond members of this devaluation (and I think zero is being generous - we still haven't received any official communication as to these new policies.) I have no problem with Hilton providing two tiers (Standard and Premium), as long as they don't dramatically reduce the availability of Standard while lying about it - not what's happened here.

Originally Posted by 3Cforme

The OP's original premise - that Moorea no longer offers Standard awards - is demonstrably false. Maybe the OP's scope of investigation was inadequate, maybe he didn't characterize his findings with total precision, maybe Hilton has changed its implementation for Moorea in the four weeks since his post, but a simple flexible date search shows awards available at 50K points/night that are plainly labeled Rate Type: STANDARD ROOM AWARD. I'm not going to bother to validate or disprove assertions made against every property named in this thread.

Originally Posted by jake66

the premium awards are so expensive it seems hard to imagine that many people will use them.

Originally Posted by lkar

They almost seem like a joke. If you were doing a bit of due diligence to see what the program could do for you and saw these numbers would you ever switch from another program?

I wonder if they have statistics showing premium redemptions. I find it hard to believe that anyone saavy enough to accumulate 500,000 points would ever use them for 3 days anywhere. From a marketing perspective what on earth could this possibly get them? They are right to think many don't pay attention to the intricacies. But they also need to be careful not to get branded as the chain that all the people in the office have learned gets you nothing for your points.

Originally Posted by deant

There are some properties that the premium awards are a good deal (but these are probably few and far between). For example, based on 4 nights at the HWV the standard room is 42,500 but the Premium Part Oceanview room is only 36,960. This is obviously due to the "poor" redemption value at Waikoloa. The part Oceanview room has a BAR of $264.

Again, this just goes to show how insane the HHonors redemption system is. You can get a Premium room for less than a standard room. Hilton needs to come up with a system that is reasonable and can be understood. Using a flat redemption rate per dollar just does not work and causes people to be very wary of the program.

Originally Posted by alanjrobertson

Agree 100%. The key issues to my mind are (a) lack of communication (b) devaluation of both points and Diamond status, (c) completely barmy and ludicrous premium reward rates (as well as some weirdly low ones as pointed out) and (d) lack of communication. Oh, did I mention lack of communication? (I had a 'Greetings from Dallas' reply to my query to DD about this, saying they'd get HHonors to get in touch - nothing since, that's been 2 weeks and 3 reminder emails later from me)

Originally Posted by Bluehen1

You've hit the nail on the head as to why I'm not going to pursue Diamond status this year. I was thinking that I might make a mattress run or two to make sure I got status and I'm about to pull the trigger on gaining status with another program. This would be my first non-Diamond year since 2004.

Originally Posted by alanjrobertson

Agree 100%. The key issues to my mind are (a) lack of communication (b) devaluation of both points and Diamond status, (c) completely barmy and ludicrous premium reward rates (as well as some weirdly low ones as pointed out) and (d) lack of communication. Oh, did I mention lack of communication? (I had a 'Greetings from Dallas' reply to my query to DD about this, saying they'd get HHonors to get in touch - nothing since, that's been 2 weeks and 3 reminder emails later from me)

Originally Posted by dwcatty

Here is another FTer's discovery of "no standard rooms available" at the ADT in Paris.

Frustrating!

Originally Posted by Guava

Sorry, that's false and needs to be debunked. I just did a quick search using flexible dates, plenty of 50K/Night room show up on various dates, even points + money award for 25K points + 150 Euro for Hilton Arc de Triomphe in Paris. The room type is a King Guest Room. Date is Dec.10-11, 2011. Try using the flexible date function, it will scan and tell you which dates are available and which aren't.